


What You Reap

by Mount_Seleya



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied Character Death, Not Beta Read, Not Britpicked, Protective Mycroft, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 20:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mount_Seleya/pseuds/Mount_Seleya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft chooses someone else to send on the one-way undercover mission. Spoilers for series three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Reap

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely loved Mary in the first two episodes of series three, but then "His Last Vow" came and left me with a lot of mixed feelings about her, and so this is something I dashed out quickly to explore some of my thoughts.

Above the cot the mobile spun in the gentle spring breeze streaming through the open window. Cat, cow, moon, dish, and spoon, all whirling slowly in stop-start fits, forever locked in the courses allotted them in their nursery rhyme.  
  
Reaching down, Mary stroked her curled index finger across a plump cheek, felt breath puff out the tiny furl of a nose.  
  
John's nose in miniature. John's ears in miniature. John's heart, too, if there was any kindness left in the universe.  


 

* * *

  
  
_When she exited the shop, flimsy carrier bag straining under the weight of a sack of flour, a black car was waiting. She stilled, focus narrowing like the sight of a sniper rifle, and then out got a woman, long brown hair and smart grey dress._   


 

* * *

  
  
That first day, Sherlock held Pearl with even more care than John, sang soft and deep. It shouldn't have surprised Mary, that his voice carried a song as sweetly as he played the violin, but for some inexplicable reason it had.  
  
Some nights, she relived that shattering instant, Sherlock's eyes filled with trust and then the hissing _pop_ of a silencer. He knew the human body. Knew all of its myriad frailties. So did John. How could they not, the detective who'd made unsnarling the tangled skeins of death his life's work, and the doctor who served three years in Afghanistan? All the same, Sherlock had absolved her, and John with him, had upheld the singular purity of the vow he made to protect her family despite knowing full well that a bullet to the liver bore a slightly less than certain chance of death.  
  
But if she could go back, do her life over a thousand times, she knew that she'd pull the trigger every time.  
  
John. John and Pearl. Cutting like a lighthouse through night as black as the blood of a hundred men. Yet despite how fiercely she had struggled, how fast she had clung, they were slipping away now like water between her fingers.  


 

* * *

  
  
_"There is an undercover assignment in Eastern Europe that requires your...rather unique set of skills."_   
  
_"No," Mary immediately snapped back. "I've got a husband. A baby. All that's finally behind me."_   
  
_Mycroft's mouth twitched into a taut, mirthless curl, a cruel version of the forbearingly soft smile he wore at Christmas. "I apologize for giving the impression that this is a simple volunteer job which one is free to decline."_   
  
_"I'm sorry I hurt your brother. Truly am. But I'm not throwing away everything so you can take your pound of flesh."_   
  
_"I am certain that additional copies of the files destroyed by your husband could be procured and...special arrangements...made to ensure he learns the precise extent of your association with James Moriarty."_   
  
_A frisson of dread slithered down Mary's spine. "How long will the job last?" she asked._   
  
_"About six months," Mycroft answered, his tone confirming her worst fears._   


 

* * *

  
   
Pearl stirred slightly in her slumber, releasing a soft, burbling little grunt. Mary jerked her hand away. Tamping down a sob, she backed away from the cot, then wheeled and strode quickly out of the nursery and downstairs to the kitchen.  
  
"She's got nappy rash," she told Kate. "I'm just going to nip to the shop for some cream. Mind watching her?"  
  
"Not at all," Kate replied, offering Mary a warm grin as she lifted her cup of tea and took a sip.  
  
Mary went to the foyer, took her coat down from the peg on which it was hanging, and then walked out the front door. The sun was shining. Birds were twittering in the trees. Everything was normal, except for the fact that she was never going to set foot in London again, never going to say goodbye to John, never going to see her daughter grow up.  
  
Mycroft's car was parked in an alley two blocks away, a sleek, black hearse waiting to deliver her to her fate.


End file.
